


Purple Hearts

by TheLadyNina



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: M/M, PA Rhys, PA!Rhys, post angel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-18 14:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10618713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyNina/pseuds/TheLadyNina
Summary: It had all seemed like a good idea at the start, an undiscovered star system, an alien planet filled to the brim with eridium? How could Handsome Jack resist? Bringing his PA along for the journey, he was more than ready to claim this planet in the name of Hyperion, but mostly himself.However things don't go quite as planned and now he and Rhys must not only depend on eachother, but struggle to stay alive.





	1. Bless You

If you were to ask Rhys how he’d gotten the position as the PA of the most notorious CEO this side of the galaxy, he’d tell you it was from pure talent and exceptional knowledge within his field.  
Honestly, he didn’t much understand how he’d ended up as Handsome Jacks PA, it had all started with a promotion really, a promotion that had been snatched away by his long time nemesis, Hugo Vasquez.  
The man had ‘convinced’ their former boss into ‘early retirement’ so to speak and stolen Rhys’ promotion from right under his nose, demoting him to Janitor – No scratch that, Senior Vice Janitor, just to add salt to the wound.

Rhys had been Janitor for almost a week, spending his days resentfully cleaning and good portions of his evenings drinking with his friends. It was during that week he learned just how little people paid attention to the janitors; he’d hear things he normally wouldn’t have. One day he’d overheard some of the higher ups, trying to stage a coup against their CEO, wanting to overthrow him and take the Hyperion throne for themselves.

To be fair, Rhys hadn’t known what to do with this information and had expressed his concerns to his friends, who tried to come up for a plan to get the information to their CEO.

It had all been for naught though, as within his one week of janitorial work, Rhys had been called to man himself office. He’d been so scared that his knees were visibly shaking, but whilst mobbing up a liquid he to this day refused to believe was blood, he’d dropped the mob and taken large, shaky steps towards the CEO, seated behind his desk.

Looking back, Jack had had the most perplexed and caught off guard expression he’d ever seen, not even managing to ask what Rhys thought he was doing before he’d told the older man all he knew.  
Jack hadn’t been all too impressed nor convinced, he had in fact thrown Rhys out without any reason, leaving the young man fearing for life – Even more so when he was called back to the office a few hours later.  
Jack had been different then, all smiles and praise that to this day still left Rhys a little weak in the knees.

He’d barely heard the man promoting him, earning a loud laughter when asking the CEO to repeat, apparently Jack had liked his gusto and appreciated his loyalty, he’d said something about competence and talked a lot of smack about other employees – not that Rhys remembered, he’d been too floored back then to listen to everything Jack said.

That had been almost 7 months ago, since then he had slowly become Jack’s shadow, always right behind him, he was his gatekeeper, nobody got to Jack unless he’d cleared them in the schedule, it was both a deeply satisfying power to have – Admittedly, Vasquez usually waited longer than anyone ells – But it was also a huge responsibility, that came with lots of overtime and lots more stress, seeing as he was working directly with Jack. It had been terrifying in the beginning, but eventually it became easier to work with the man, he liked to think he and Jack had a somewhat mutual respect and sort of kinship with each other.  
A kinship, that apparently meant, that when Jack was going off station, he wanted to bring his PA along, even to undiscovered planets.

“So what you’re telling me… That you found an entire planet… Soaked in Eridium?”

Rhys was dragged out of his thought by Jacks voice, having zoned out from the way a pair of scientists had droned on and on about some far-off planet one of their survey bots had discovered.  
“a-ah… Uhm yes, so to speak sir…” the gangly scientist spoke, somehow managing to look through his massive bug-eyed goggles at the CEO.

“W-we believe that this planet, t-that we’ve named EePosit is-“

“Bless ya”

Rhys rolled his eyes heavily, glad he was standing behind Jack, though he had no doubt in his mind that the man was currently wearing the biggest shit-eating grin possible, properly quite proud of his, frankly, terrible joke.  
It seemed to have thrown the scientist off for a moment as he shot a confused look in Rhys’ direction before managing a half-assed chuckle, continuing shortly after.

“Y-yes, well… The survey drone spotted this planet, in one of our neighboring system, s-so far its uncharted but the planet is in a green zone around its sun, it giving us very high energy signals, p-plus visuals indicate surface eridium deposits…”  
He’d started mumbling slightly towards the end, it wasn’t easy having the CEOs attention on you, let alone keep that attention, there was most likely many more facts he could give about this planet, but honestly all Jack cares about was that they could go on the planet and it had eridium.

And that was how they ended up where they were now, on a Hyperion cruiser, loaded with a decent sized science team, military personal, pilots, various other employees and of course, Rhys and Handsome Jack himself.  
The trip in itself wasn’t going to be too hard, the hyper jump would make the journey last about an hour, if they had to go at top speed, it would take them several months Jack had explained, as if Rhys didn’t know anything about space travel.

“So is there any reason why we’re going? Wouldn’t a survey team have been enough?” Rhys asked the CEO once they were alone, looking out at the star blinking by in a blur.

“Rhysie, Rhysie, Rhysie… You’re not seeing the big picture here!” Jack sounded, smacking the younger man a few times on the back, as if he pitied him.

“We’re talking about an undiscovered habitable planet, in an unclaimed system, how can I not go there?” he smirked widely at his PA and it took Rhys all of five seconds to realize exactly why Jack wanted to go so badly.

“… Don’t tell me you’re gonna make sure to be the first one stepping on the ground just to plant some flag…” 

The way Jacks smirk widened told Rhys more than enough, as he ran his flesh hand down his face “oh my god Jack… That is just… I have no words”

“Eeeeeeexactly Rhysie!” the man exclaimed “Can you imagine, we’re gonna claim a whole new planet, just for Hyperion, we’re gonna step out of this ship like kings, claiming the planet like old time pioneers, me and you baby!”  
The way Jack said that almost made Rhys believe him, but by god if it wasn’t the most… Geeky thing Jack had said in a long time. It was both endearing and embarrassing at the same time, a skill the man seemed to possess. Just ask his pony…  
The next hour was spend with Jack throwing ideas at Rhys about possible names for new cities and land masses, how he was going to find the biggest mountain and name it after himself, Rhys was amused by all this, it was almost like seeing a child at Christmas – in some weird way.

When the man explained he was going to find the dumbest looking flower and name it a Rhysie Daisy the young PA had promptly shut the conversation down by going to the bridge, escaping the man’s laughter.

 

When they finally reached the planet, Jack was thankfully at a loss for words.  
They were currently in orbit around the planet, it wasn’t much smaller than Pandora, but the entire planet gave off this purple glow that was all too familiar, according to the scientists, they were getting energy readings that were off the charts, some places higher than others.

“Look at that Rhysie…” Jack spoke next to him, voice only above a whisper as they both stared out the window.

“it’s goddamn beautiful…” and it was, it was almost… Ethereal to look at. 

Slowly their ship began ascending towards the planet, once the shaking became intense as they hit the atmosphere, Jack and Rhys went to strap themselves in their seats, much like everyone ells.  
That’s when all hell broke loose.

The entire ship suddenly seemed to trash to the side, sending Jack and several others hurling to the floor before the ship went dark.  
“What in hell’s name is going on?!” Jack shouted, getting back on his feet, rushing towards the front of the bridge.

“Sir we were hit by a huge energy surge!” One pilot informed

“all systems are offline, nothing is responding and emergency power isn’t turning on!” the other pilot supplied.

“Yes, I can see that for myself THANK YOU!” Jacks face whirled towards Rhys “Stay strapped in, don’t fucking move an inch!” he’d ordered, turning back to the pilots, leaning over them to smash at several buttons, trying to force the ship back on as it was now hurling towards the planet’s surface.

Rhys was almost glad he couldn’t see how far up they were, they’d been surrounding by dark clouds the moment they hit the atmosphere.

“S-sir, you must prepare for emergency landing!” One pilot managed to get through to Jack, who hurried back towards the chairs were Rhys was currently strapped in.  
He ship trashed harshly again, one of the panels on the bridge exploding as a result, followed by more tumbling and then screaming. So much screaming…

 

They hit the ground at some point, but Rhys couldn’t remember what had happened, just that everything had both stopped and rushed ahead at the same time, for seemingly ages, everything was both upside down and right side up. He suspected their ship had tumbled once it hit the surface.

Now though, he was hanging ever so slightly from his seat, the straps still very much keeping him in and doing a bang up job too. His head was still swimming as he looked around. The ship had been utterly trashed, large pieces were scattered around the area, clouded by a mix of fog and smoke.

His seat was still attached to a bit of wall and floor, a few square feet of the bridge was all that was left, a seat to his left, a seat to his right.  
Once his head cleared, he was able to activate his echo eye, which was a bit glitch from the stress he was currently going through. Which wasn’t helped when it started picking up several dead bodies scattered around him.

Shit, where was… Where was Jack?

He’d almost started to panic, when his eye finally located the man, he was on the ground below from where Rhys currently hung.  
It didn’t take long at all for Rhys to decide to unbuckle his straps, taking the short fall to the ground and Jacks side; he needed to see that the man was all right for himself.  
He was alive, through a little worse for the wear, Rhys suspected he was himself in a similar state, a quick scan helped calm him down as well, scrapes and bruises as well as a minor head trauma, nothing to be worried about, he was just knocked out.  
Once he knew the man was - all things considered- okay, he slumped slightly against the older’s form, relaxing for just a moment. He couldn’t rest for long though, he needed to get Jack away from the wreck, it wasn’t safe here.

Standing on shaky legs, he scanned the area around them, mentally cursing as he felt a soft dampness hitting his skin, a dust like rain slowly ascending over them.  
Soon enough he spotted a small den amidst some large rocks, it would have to do.

“C-come on Jack… L-let’s get out of t-this rain” he spoke, shocked at how unsteady and hoarse his own voice sounded.

It hadn’t been easy, but eventually he managed to drag the unconscious CEO to the den, laying him down as comfortably as he could and draping the man’s own jacket over his torso.  
Finally he could rest as well, he was alive, Jack was alive… But it seemed they were the only ones who’d made it and now they were stranded on an alien planet.  
Rhys turned to look out the den, towards the still smoking debris of their ship as the fog and rain claimed it.

 

What were they going to do now?


	2. Look don't touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the lovely comments!

The ship’s fires had long since ended when Jack finally woke up again.  
He’d startled Rhys, who’d been softly zoning out at the opening of their small cave, but he immediately moved to the CEOs side once he realized the pained groan had been him and not some alien creature.

“Uuuugh… Goddamnit, my head feels like Elpis looks” the man groaned, hands pressed onto his temples as he sat up, slowly he looked around himself, seeming confused about his surroundings before the two-coloured eyes finally landed on his PA.

“Hey-uh… You’re here too huh?” He looked around some more, Rhys took notice of how he still seemed a little un-orientated, but he supposed he couldn’t fault the man for that, given the situation.

“… You gonna stop staring at me and give me an update here, or what cupcake?” Jack finally sounded, looking at Rhys like he’d expected the younger man to do so the moment he woke up.

“O-oh! Y-yes uhm…” Rhys worried his lower lip for a moment before moving so that Jack could see out the den as well.

“As far as I know… The ship crashed onto the planet due to a strange electrical storm when we hit atmo…” he began, ignoring the ‘duh’ his boss made “ I-I’m unsure of the details right now, but the ship’s completely wrecked and I’ve seen no other survivors… I haven’t seen much of anything; this fog like rain has blocked much visibility…” 

Jack moved slightly to peak out at the still falling rain, as if he was checking up on what Rhys said was actually true, his face growing more and more annoyed by the second.  
“Great! Well that’s just… Juuuust great ya know? Nothing like getting, oh I dunno, stranded on an alien planet! Oh-ho-ho princess, those assholes better have died in the crash or I am RIPPING THEIR THROATS OUT by myself!”   
Jack was in full out angry rant by now, nothing Rhys hadn’t seen a million times back on Helios, but right now it left him uneasy, it wasn’t making their situation any better, Jack needed to keep a leveled head and they needed to form a plan, but he didn’t dare voice this to his very much agitated boss.

Said boss, spend perhaps five full minutes describing various fun scenarios of things he would do to the dead crew if they’d survived this crash, making Rhys silently praying that none of them had, they would be far off better dead in the crash than if Jack got his hands on them. The man obviously furious that their ‘incompetence’ had almost cost him and his PA their lives.   
Rhys tried to ignore the small flutter in his chest when Jack indirectly voiced his concern for him.  
“Once the rain let’s up, we’re heading out there… There’s gotta be some equipment intact, perhaps the ships communication system is still functional…” Jack finally spoke, voice a little breathless from his long ranting, he got on his feet, having a little trouble balancing at first, but he managed.

“Of course Jack”

 

It was almost an hour later that the rain finally ended and they were able to step out of their den, the fog slowly lifting itself from their surroundings and leaving them astounded.  
They’d crashed into some sort of jungle and were surrounded by tall trees and unknown flora, but the most spectacular thing about the plant life around them, was that they were all various shades of purple, lilac and blue.

Even Jack seemed impressed as he let out a small whistle, looking around the place.   
“it’s… Beautiful” Rhys spoke softly, eyeing some large, fascinating, glowing mushrooms that reminded him of some he’d seen once he went with Jack on Pandora.  
“Don’t you start again” Jack quickly pushed him forward, steering his PA away from the mushrooms, though with a wide grin on his lips.

Their excitement didn’t last long though, once they reached the crash site, it was clear that not much of it was intact. The large ship was scattered over a large area of downed trees and upturned dirt, as well as charred bodies and pieces of bodies. The sight had made Rhys uneasy, hands fiddling together as Jack breathed heavily through his nose next to him. Without a word, the CEO went to inspect what was left of the bridge.  
Sighing softly, Rhys went to inspect other pieces of debris, using his echo eye to scan the objects, anything electrical was either damaged, singed beyond hope or otherwise fried, making him wonder if the ships drive core had exploded or was still somewhere in the jungle.

He did manage to find a few supply crates that hadn’t been utterly destroyed, it was the emergency supplies for their military staff, mostly dried food, food paste and water filters, but it was better than nothing. As he returned to where he’d left Jack to tell him the news, he found the man seated by the pilots’ chair, one of the bridge panels open and with various wires and other tech hanging out, as the man was trying to get a signal to contact Hyperion, using a busted echo-comm as a power source.   
“I repeat, this is Handsome Jack, you assholes better be answering me if you hear this! We’ve crashed landed on this… Ass-end of a planet, named… I dunno, the sound you make when you sneeze, get us the fuck outta here! Hello?”   
He tried a few more times whilst Rhys slowly made his way up to the man, jumping slightly in surprise when the man grabbed the echo and hurled it out the busted window whilst letting out a loud, angry snarl, followed by heavy, angry huffs.  
Carefully Rhys edged closer, placing his metal hand on Jacks shoulder, only to flinch away when the man snarled at him. Jack did calm down considerably when he saw it was just Rhys, slumping slightly against the consul, as he muttered softly to himself. But before Rhys could react to this, frankly unfamiliar state the man was in; he was back up on his feet, looking at the younger man.

“So… You find anything?” Jack asked, seeming intend on diverting the subject from his emotional state.

“I uhm… I found an emergency supply crate that’s still intact… Won’t be anything fancy but it’s… Something I guess” he shrugged slightly, suddenly finding his shoes more interesting now.

“great that’s… Yeah, great” Jack sighed, pushing himself away from the pilots’ chair and walking out into the open area of the crash site, taking in their surroundings.

Once Rhys caught up with him, he seemed to have made a decision in his mind “Listen, kiddo… No telling how long we’ll be stuck here, best we can do is some recon for the area, see if we can find something to boost the echo’s signal… So, hey, don’t you worry your pretty lil’ head, all right?” the over-confident grin and finger guns he threw at Rhys did nothing to make the younger man any less worried, in fact he was pretty sure now that Jack was at least as uncertain about their situation as he was.  
But he gave him a small smile and an ‘all right, thanks Jack’ to help his boss feel better about the situation, he could act like he was okay for Jacks sake.

 

In hindsight, it was perhaps stupid to go into a jungle on an alien planet, but they did need to know more about the area where they were currently forced to stay. Jack had Rhys scan various things, all from plants, to minerals and even some of the local fauna they encountered.  
So far it had been nothing drastic, just a bunch of harmless bird like bats, there’s been a strange, spotted mammal of some kind, that seemed like its head and torso was all one body part, large eyes at the ‘top’ and a mouth where you’d think it’s stomach should be. Jack had been very entertained when the creature used its freakishly long tail to eat some sort of fruit; it had taken Rhys a good few minutes to convince the man that taking it back to Helios would be a bad idea.

But whereas the wildlife had been pretty tame thus far, the plants were a different story. Most of the scans didn’t reveal anything, due to the plants not being documented in any way – could have seen that coming, Rhys had thought to himself.  
But a few of the plants did hold elements they already knew, like a dark purple cacti like plant they found, which his echo-eye warned him contained a toxin that could cause death and a lot of the mushrooms contained a sort of neurotoxin. Needless to say, Rhys wasn’t that interested in these mushrooms anymore.

“Holy shit Rhysie, lookit that!” Jack suddenly sounded, gripping hard onto Rhys’ shoulder and shaking him in the direction Jack was looking.

Rhys wasn’t so sure what he was supposed to look at- until it moved.  
A large beast was moving around in the clearing not too far away from them, it was a little larger than an alpha skag and about the same colour as its surroundings, various purples and blues. Heavy frontal plates on its head as well as a pair of heavy front legs, it’s back going down a bit in height to thinner hind legs. The weirdest part was its neck area, which seemed to work like a sort of large balloon, which moved as it breathed, with every inhale giving an eridium like glow.   
“Isn’t that the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen? Holy shit!” Jack laughed a little breathlessly whilst Rhys stared at the strange, large creature as it was preoccupied with eating a poor sapling.   
He was so surprised by this creature; he almost didn’t hear Jack saying that he was going to poke it.

“uh-buh, what? What did- Jack no..!” he hissed as his boss just casually walked up to the large creature, throwing his trade mark shit eating grin at the younger man, before moving his hand to touch the thing.

Luckily, it seemed at no point concerned with Jack touching it.  
“Oh my god, Rhysie, you gotta come over here and touch this thing! It’s like touching a moving rock, but with the world’s thickets sack of leather draped over it!” Jack laughed “I bet this ugly bastard can’t even feel me through all this!” 

And then he kicked the beast as to make a point, just as it turned its head to inspect the strange noises coming from its side, resulting in Jack kicking its very much softer balloon throat.  
Enraged it lifted its head, standing much taller and far more predatory than before, as it let out a loud, shrill sounding roar, flashing its double rowed teeth, which looked like they were made for eating meat as well.

“JACK!” Rhys had screamed as the CEO turned on his heel and sprinted away from the large creature and right past his PA, who was quick to follow his boss.

They ran through the jungle, only stopping once they had trouble breathing. Luckily, it seemed the beast hadn’t been that interested in chasing them down. Once Jack realized they weren’t being chased, he started laughing, slapping a still breathless Rhys on the back.

“See cupcake? There was nothing to worry about!” 

Never in the past many months that Rhys has worked for Jack, had he ever wanted to smack the man harder, what the hell was he thinking? Had he been thinking at all? He’d been about to snap at the older man, face and voice ready for anger, but halted as he looked at the older – or well, as he looked past him.

“Jack… Turn around”

 

Looking a little miffed at this odd response, Jack threw a look over his shoulder half-heartedly, he had been about to look back at Rhys but stopped himself to turn around properly.

It was a ship, or the remains of a ship, several in fact.

They’d stumbled onto an area, seemingly filled with crashed ships, many of them overgrown by the local plant life. They were large ones and small ones of various shapes. No colour was left on them though or at least nothing to give an idea where they’d hailed from.   
Quietly they walked amongst this graveyard of spaceships, Rhys keeping his echo-eye going as he scanned the ships they passed. He did hold onto Jacks arm and the man let him as they walked.

“… So uhm… You get anything?” Jack finally spoke, breaking this eerie silence that had fallen over them.  
“Some of these ships… Are ancient… The decay and plant growth… They’ve been here for decades, some even centuries”

“Shit”

“yeah…”

They stood in silence, looking at one of the larger ships, its state was a little fresher, but not by much, faded lettering suggesting it was an old DAHL ship, but the unpleasant realization of the situation, even left the Handsome Jack at a loss for words.  
Rhys’ eyes moved to the sky, looking at a mountain not too far away, the clouds were darkening again, just like when they’d crashed. His eye picking up on high energy readings, just like when they’d arrived.  
“C’mon cupcake… Let’s go back”  
He didn’t protest that, just wanting to get away from this graveyard.

They didn’t make it back to the den before rain ascended on them again, the sky growing darker as the day cycle was coming to an end. They’d brought the supply crate from their crash site, but the small detour had left them with rather wet clothes.  
Jack managed to make them a small fire by the edge of their den, a skill Rhys decided not to question as he laid out his drenched jacket, right next to Jacks.  
The silence that fell over them, as they sat and munched softly on some jerky, was as heavy as the rain.  
Rhys found himself thinking back to his friends on Helios, he wondered if word had gotten to the space station about the crash. God, what would Vaughn and Yvette think? Were they currently mourning him, thinking he’d died? He’d been so busy lately that they hadn’t had much time to hang out, he’d seen Vaughn before he’d boarded the ship, the two had promised to get together once he came back. Vaughn had wanted to give him a hug, but he’d left his bro hanging because Jack had called for him to hurry up.  
Was that going to be Vaughn’s last memory of him, they didn’t even get to say goodbye properly? And Yvette wouldn’t even have gotten to see him one last time.  
He couldn’t stop the sniffle that escaped him and once that was out, it was like someone opened the door and everything that had happened in less than 24 hours suddenly came crashing down on the younger man.  
He couldn’t stop the flow of tears that streamed down his cheeks, so he hid his face against his knees, hugging them tight as he tried to sob silently.

Whilst he sat there and shook softly, a large hand suddenly appeared on his shoulder, making him flinch slightly before looking up at his boss.  
Jack wasn’t looking at him; he kept his eyes straight on the fire, making Rhys briefly wonder why he’d even touched him in the first place, then the man spoke, voice surprisingly steady and warm.

“We’ll be all right. I haven’t made it this far to die now. And you can bet your ass you’re not dying either on my watch, trust me. So stop the waterfalls there ok, got enough rain going on already”  
He’d turned his head slightly, looking right into Rhys’ eyes as he finished speaking. Rhys wasn’t sure what to make of this, strange but welcomed comforting Jack was doing, but he did feel somewhat more at ease.

 

“Yeah… I trust you Jack”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we are, chapter two done and done. So far so good XD


	3. Echo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the great comments! Sorry this chapter took so long, I've had some shit thrown at me XD

Their first night on this hellhole of a planet had been one of the worst ones in his entire life, Rhys had decided. It had been cold and damp at the same time, making a chill stick to his bones, if that hadn’t been enough, some animal in the jungle had been making long, howling calls for 2 hours during the night, causing Jack to have a fit and scream into the night for it to shut up.

So that had been fun.

 

The only thing that brought him just a tiny amount of joy, was the fact that Jack had had just as terrible a night and was having just as terrible a morning. He even seemed to have a case of the sniffles. Both of them were really missing a nice hot cup of coffee and a breakfast that wasn’t some strange tasting paste from a tube – Which Jack had refused to eat despite his rumbling stomach. 

“Jack you have to eat something” Rhys had insisted, the older man growling at him in response.

“What’s that cupcake? Think you can give me orders now?” Jack had leaned real close to him, snarling at the younger man as he roughly grabbed his jaw “We might be stranded here, but I’m still Handsome Jack and your boss. So keep those pretty lips closed, got it?”

Calm anger Jack was always more intimidating that shouting anger Jack, at least in Rhys’ opinion, so he’d just nodded quickly and stayed as quite as mouse whilst Jack spend his morning in a grouchy mood.

They spend some time apart then, Rhys mostly walking around their camping area, scanning various plants and getting little to nothing useful from it, he’d almost screamed when Jack suddenly appeared by his side, not looking at the younger man, but sort of off to the side.

“We should try and investigate the area more… Perhaps that ships graveyard as well… Gonna need your eye, that’s… That’s an order”   
Rhys blinked softly, Jacks tone of voice sounded a bit odd, but he wasn’t going to point that out, especially after the man’s earlier anger.

“Of course, lead the way…”

With a stiff nod the man turned around and headed into the jungle, closely followed by his PA. Rhys wondered if this was the closest he’d get to see Jack experience guilt, perhaps he was feeling bad for reacting the way he did earlier that morning?   
He wasn’t going to ask, it was better not to, after all Jack didn’t handle the softer emotions well. 

 

On their way to the graveyard, Jack would stop them and ask Rhys to scan various plants that he thought looked funny or interesting. They came across a dark purple, prickless cactus of some kind and Jack had been curious as to if it had water in it they could drink.  
A quick scan luckily advised against it, the fluid inside the strange plant showed signs of containing isotopes.  
Rhys would have to admit, that seeing Jack practically leap away from the plant he had been running his hand over, had been beyond hilarious and he’d fought hard not to laugh whilst storing that memory in his head for a rainy day.

“Don’t you laugh at me”  
“Wouldn’t dream of it sir”

Later on they had found a tree with some large, melon like fruits hanging from it, Jack had plucked one, smashed it in half – much to Rhys’ protests, before turning to the younger man.

“Well what are you waiting for dum-dum? Use that fancy eye of yours!”

Rhys frowned slightly at Jack before activating his echo-eye, it was useless though, the eye wasn’t able to pick up on anything, just giving him error signs. He supposed at least this meant the fruit wasn’t radioactive or toxic… At least not a toxin that the echo-net knew.

“Well?” Jack asked impatiently.

“No clue, it wasn’t able to find anything, we should properly just avoid it, in case it’s poisonous” 

“What are you talking about??” Jack then suddenly sounded “If your eye hasn’t picked up any toxins or radioactive bullshit, it’s fine! C’mon Rhysie, we can’t live off those crappy supplies, they’ll last us another day or two”  
“Perhaps, but if that melon carries something that we can’t digest or any unknown toxins, then we’re gambling with our lives, we don’t have any medical supplies remember?” Rhys tried to argue, but he realized halfway, much to his horror, that Jack wasn’t paying him any attention.

He was looking at the two halves of the melon, seeming to decide which side looked the tastiest. Before Rhys managed to protest, he lifted one to take bite.

Honestly, Rhys didn’t know he could move that fast, within a second his robotic hand had effectively slapped both melon sides from jacks hand, sending them crashing to the ground were they broke even further.   
He was also pretty sure his life flashed before his eyes following that action, he’d just slapped something out of Jacks hands.  
Jack stared at him, then down at the melon, then back at Rhys. The young man wondered if he should just run, but it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to happen, they were both frozen in place, from the shock of what happened.  
Jack was the first to break the silence.

“Rhys… You better have a very, very good reason for what you just did” Jack spoke, voice low, firm and tinted with danger.

Rhys swallowed heavily; the fact that Jack was using his actual name was putting him on edge.

“I-I…” he sounded, slowly back away from the pissed of CEO “I-I’m sorry Jack, it’s just… Just ah… It could be poisonous… I just don’t think you should run this risk, what if you died? I…I’d be all alone”   
Jack breathed out heavily through his nose and stayed quiet for a few moments, but then his hand shot forward and grabbed Rhys by the shoulder, preventing him from moving any further away. Rhys was sure this was it, Jack was going to yell at him or perhaps even kill him, but instead, the man just started laughing, loud and heartily.

“Oooohhohohoo…! Rhysie, Rhysie, Rhysie… Are you scared that big, strong Jack won’t be there to protect you? Aww that’s just precious~” The man cooed in high, condescending voice, causing Rhys’ cheeks to flush in embarrassment, especially when Jack tugged him close, laughing again.

Once he stopped, he pinched Rhys’ red cheek “Oh don’t you worry your silly little head pumpkin, I’m the hero here, I won’t leave my damsel all on his own, I’ll leave the fruit be, for now” 

Rhys frowned heavily, not appreciating being called a ‘damsel’ and was about to protest, when jack grabbed his chin as forced his face to his, their noses almost touching and Rhys’ heart leaping into his throat.  
“But if you pull that stunt again princess, I’m whooping your ass, got it?” the older spoke in that low, warning tone again, when Rhys frantically nodded, he just smiled brightly and let him go.

“C’mon kid, let’s get to that graveyard!”

The ship graveyard was easy to find again, and now that that’d it rained most of the night, a low fog was hanging throughout the large open space, making it seem even more eerie than yesterday.  
They investigated some of the ships that seemed like they’d been here the longest, Rhys’ echo-eye calculated from the hulls degradation, that some of them had been here for almost a thousand years, which was mind blowing to say the least.  
Some of the more familiar looking ships hadn’t been here nearly as long, the DAHL ships degradation dated it to being only a few years old, they hoped that meant there would be equipment that they could actually use, but what remained of the ship, seemed to have been stripped clean.

“This doesn’t make any sense, even with the crash it made; the shuttle should still have its inventory more intact than this. Nav. Systems are missing, seats are gone, large pieces of the hull and no supply crates in sight. Fan-freaking-tastic”   
Jack was keeping a one-sided conversation with himself, debating if any of the wildlife could have done this and then why the hell they’d do so.

Whilst he was busy with himself, Rhys was investigating an alien ship, not much older than Dahls, this one was pretty intact, but housed weird looking skeletons on the inside. Rhys made sure to snap some photos of them with his echo-eye; it could be interesting to look into once they returned to Helios.

If they returned to Helios.

Rhys shuddered softly at the thought, trying to shake it from his head, it would do him no good to think about that, they’d only been here for almost 24 hours, which meant that by now, someone surely must’ve wondered why they’d made no contact with Helios yet and send someone to get them.

It was a small hope he’d have to cling to.

As he explored the area, just idly scanning the various ships, his eye picked up on something in the jungle on the other side of the graveyard, an energy signature.  
It made him pause as he did a more proper scan, for a short moment he almost thought he’d just imagined it, but then, there it was, not too far into the jungle, that was an energy signature, and an electrical one as well, similar to the ones from an echo-log.

“Jack! I think I found something!” he shouted back towards where he’d last seen the man.

What followed was a hollow, metallic ‘gong!’ noise, followed by the older man swearing before calling back.  
“Well don’t keep me in suspense! Goddamnit… What is it??”

“I’m not sure, I think it might be an echo-log, it’s in the jungle, I’m gonna check it out!” He’d barely started walking when Jack came running towards him.

“Wait, wait…! I’ll go with you!”

Following the signature had been fairly easy, but they hadn’t been prepared for what they then found.

It was a camp, made out of pieces of broken ship parts, some cut down trees and ratty tents on the inside, along with some crates in various states of being. 

Jack had sworn under his breath, wishing he had a gun once he recognized the camp was under the DAHL banner. This was just typical, an alien planet and he’d run into his company rival who’d messed up so many aspects of his life for him.  
His concern was unneeded however.

Once they entered the camp – creeping into it quietly – they soon discovered that the camps only inhabitants were skeletons.

“Aw... That’s disappointing” Jack sounded, though he was secretly relieved there wasn’t a gun fight waiting for them. 

“There’s like… A dozen skeletons here” Rhys pointed out as they walked around the camp, not that Jack cared, he was more interested to see if there was anything they could use and if there was supplies left.

“How can there be a dozen people in one place and yet no medical supplies? Not even any toiletries? There’s nothing! Just rot and useless junk! I know DAHL are incompetent assholes, but this is taking the cake, I mean how can someone be so- hey, hey cupcake? You listening to me?” Jack stopped mid-rant, noticing his PA wasn’t indulging him.  
Instead Rhys was crouched by a large pile of skeletons, eye scanning them.

“hey!” Jack appeared by his side, hand slamming onto his shoulder “Kiddo, I was talking to you! What are you even-“

“Jack… Look” Rhys interrupted, picking up one of the bones, showing it to Jack.

Jack didn’t know what Rhys wanted him to see and just as he was about to complain, he noticed it.

The bone had bite marks.

In fact, now that he looked closer, the skeletons all seemed to have the same, large dents in them, some were even shattered.

“Pssh, that’s what got you spooked kiddo? So what, some stupid DAHL soldiers croaked and then something ate their corpses? Friggen A if you ask me” Jack just waved it off, smirking at the thought of the rival companies demise. 

“We don’t know that Jack… What if they were died because something hunted them? We don’t know what’s out there”

Jack frowned down at the younger man, he was well aware of this and if he was honest with himself, it was very much possible that that was the case. But he didn’t need Rhys to focus on that, being scared of what could be, wouldn’t help them now.

“Pfft, you worry too much Rhysie, I’ll protect you from the monsters~” he winked at the younger man, shooting him some finger guns that Rhys rolled his eyes at.

“C’mon, let’s find that echo-log, it should have some parts I can use to make a communicator”

Rhys still wasn’t convinced, but he let it drop for now – and the bone along with it.

Finding the echo-log was easy enough, it was an old piece of junk, its screen was cracked, but it still had power and that was a miracle in itself  
It also had one intact recording on it, which Rhys insisted they listen to; after all it was dated to have been about a few years ago, possibly after the crash.   
Activating the log gave off a lot of static, the recording was damaged afterall, but once the person started speaking it was relatively clear.

“Sssssssssss--!! It’s…. It’s that damn ship…. It… It’s doing this, It’s- ksssssssssssssh! ‘fecting the planet, leaking into it, c-c-c-causing these storms. Kssssh! Get out, there’s no way. O-our only hope, is turning off it-ssssssssssshk! -Core…”  
The recording was followed by a lot of background noise all of the sudden, gunshots and a loud, deep roar.

“O-oh god… It’s back… Ksssh! Shoot it! Shoot it!” another roar, this time closer “Oh god, no! no! NO!-Kssssssssssh!” 

As the echo-log ended, Rhys and Jack sat together on a crate, slowly looking at one another.

This all just got a lot more complicated.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fanfiction in FOREVER! Let me know what you think, thanks!


End file.
